Complex sentence construction may depend on a surprisingly simple system. Skip to main content. Scientific American. April 1, 2009. ... To find out which system is at work when we form sentences, ...

Recently, one such simple sentence revealed its extraordinary glory. A sentence we’ve all heard in some shape or form. A saying easy to dismiss as a feel-good cliche.

Here it is again, reduced to its simple sentence form: The horse fell. The words "raced around the barn" are a modifying element within the subject, making up -- along with "horse" -- a noun phrase.